There are races where everything goes according to plan.

And then there are races that teach you something.

The Marquette Marathon taught me how to race.

I went into Saturday feeling ready. Not perfectly rested, not without nerves, but ready. I had trained. I had done the long runs. I had trusted my body through the taper. And more than anything, I was just incredibly grateful that I got to stand at another starting line and run 26.2 miles.

The day before the race, I ran four hilariously slow miles and smiled almost the entire time.

It was humbling.

Because the thought that kept coming back to me was:

I get to do this.

I get to run.

I get to line up.

I get to test myself.

I get to feel all of it.

And then race morning came.

There is an energy at the start of a marathon that I don’t know how to explain unless you’ve been around runners on race day.

It was STRONG.

You could feel it between people.

Everyone had their own goal, their own nerves, their own reason for being there and their own story that brought them to that starting line. But for those first miles, we were all moving in the same direction together.

There were little comments between runners. Encouragement. Smiles. People settling into pace beside each other.

No one really has to explain why we’re voluntarily waking up early to run 26.2 miles.

We all just get it.

And that energy carried me.

The first half felt good.

Like, really good.

Probably a little too good. 🤣

Mile 1: 8:38
Mile 2: 8:36
Mile 3: 8:16
Mile 4: 8:18
Mile 5: 8:38
Mile 6: 8:32
Mile 7: 8:53

And then apparently at mile 8 I decided we were racing a 10K:

7:58.

😂😂😂

Ma’am.

This is a marathon.

But okay.

From there I settled back in:

Mile 9: 9:14
Mile 10: 9:07
Mile 11: 9:13
Mile 12: 8:49
Mile 13: 8:29

I felt strong.

I wasn’t forcing anything. I was just moving.

And honestly?

I was having so much fun.

That is one of my favorite things about running. There are moments where everything else gets quiet and it is just you, your feet, your breath, the people around you and the road underneath you.

For a while, I felt like I could run forever.

And then…

the sun came out.

Somewhere around mile 18, it became absolutely brutal.

Like, ohhh, there you are.

Apparently the sun had also registered for the marathon and was saving everything for the second half.

There is a very specific moment in a marathon when you realize the race you planned to run is no longer the race you’re running.

That was mine.

Mile 18: 10:44.

Mile 19: 13:03.

THIRTEEN. MINUTES. AND. THREE. SECONDS.

For reference, this is the same woman who apparently thought a 7:58 mile at mile 8 was an excellent life choice.

🤣

And I remember basically thinking:

Oh.

Okay.

This is what we’re doing now.

The heat had gotten to me. My body was tired. Everything that had felt effortless earlier suddenly required a negotiation.

Keep moving.

Get to the next aid station.

Drink.

Walk if you need to.

Run when you can.

Just keep going forward.

And as if the sun wasn’t enough, somewhere in those later miles I became very aware of the amount of pressure happening in my lady parts.

Because naturally, my period was also getting ready to start.

Nothing says female endurance athlete quite like running a marathon while your uterus is simultaneously preparing for its own event. 😂

So now we’re somewhere around mile 18.

The sun has chosen violence.

My legs are questioning my earlier decision to casually throw down a 7:58 mile.

And there is so much pelvic pressure that I’m having an entirely separate internal conversation with my reproductive system.

Like…

Girls.

We have enough going on right now.

Could we perhaps reschedule?

Apparently not.

So we continued. 😂

And this is also where the energy of the runners around me started to mean even more.

Everyone was hurting in their own way by then.

You could feel the race change around you.

People who had been chatting earlier got quieter.

Paces shifted.

Some people walked.

Some dug in.

And somehow, people who were clearly struggling themselves could still find enough energy to encourage the person next to them.

That part of racing gets me.

You can be absolutely exhausted and still have something to give another person.

A few words.

A smile.

A “you’ve got this.”

And somehow, giving it to someone else helps you keep going too.

There is something incredibly humbling about a marathon because you cannot fake your way through the last eight miles.

You can’t negotiate with 26.2.

Eventually, the marathon strips everything down to what you are willing to do when the plan falls apart.

And apparently, I was willing to keep going.

Miles 20 through 24 weren’t pretty.

Mile 20: 11:52
Mile 21: 11:06
Mile 22: 12:45
Mile 23: 12:34
Mile 24: 11:21

But here’s the thing:

They counted exactly the same.

Running has taught me this over and over again.

The ugly miles count too.

The slow ones.

The ones where you question everything.

The ones where you have to change the plan.

The ones where your only goal becomes forward.

They all count.

And weirdly, that’s another part of this race that makes me proud.

My body wasn’t operating under perfect conditions.

It was hot.

I was tired.

My hormones were doing their thing.

My pelvis felt heavy.

My pace had fallen apart.

But my body was still carrying me.

Maybe not at the pace I had envisioned.

But forward.

And that became enough.

Then something happened.

Mile 25:

10:25.

Okay.

And then mile 26:

9:30.

EXCUSE ME?!

🤣

Apparently my legs came back.

Or maybe my brain finally realized we were almost home.

Either way, I ran.

And I am ridiculously proud of that 9:30 mile.

Not because 9:30 is some extraordinary pace for me.

But because of everything that came before it.

Because after overheating, hurting, slowing down, walking, questioning everything, having a full-blown conversation with my uterus and watching the race I thought I was going to run disappear…

I still had something left.

I could hear more people.

I could feel the finish getting closer.

And once again, the energy changed.

That finish-line pull is real.

Everyone around you is exhausted, but suddenly there is this collective shift.

We’re almost there.

We made it through the hard part.

Now go.

So I did.

I finished the Marquette Marathon in:

4:18:47.

Was that the time I thought I was capable of going into the race?

No.

And strangely, that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as I would have expected.

Because this race gave me something better than the perfect time.

It gave me experience.

It taught me what happens when I go out aggressively.

It taught me what the sun can do after 18 miles.

It taught me that fueling matters.

Pacing matters.

Weather matters.

Patience matters.

It taught me how much the energy of the people around me can carry me.

And mostly, it reminded me that I can have a really hard stretch and still finish strong.

That’s probably the part I’ll remember.

There were miles Saturday where I felt incredible.

There were miles where I absolutely did not.

Both were part of the same race.

Both belonged there.

And maybe that’s why I love the marathon.

You don’t get to pick only the beautiful miles.

You run all of them.

The fast ones.

The slow ones.

The easy ones.

The brutal ones.

The loud ones.

The lonely ones.

The ones where strangers somehow make you feel less alone.

The 7:58s and the 13:03s.

They all count.

And somewhere along the way, you learn a little more about yourself.

And then, after the race, I went back and looked at my previous marathons.

That stopped me for a minute.

The first one?

I was seven weeks pregnant.

5:20.

The following year, I did it again—this time five months postpartum.

4:46.

And now?

4:18:47.

I looked at those three numbers for a while.

Because they’re race times.

But they’re also not.

They’re little timestamps of my life.

5:20.

Seven weeks pregnant. My body was already doing something extraordinary while I was asking it to run 26.2 miles.

Which, in hindsight, is completely unhinged and also apparently very on brand. 😂

4:46.

Five months postpartum. A body that had grown and delivered a baby only months earlier, lining up and doing it all over again.

And then…

4:18:47.

This body.

This version of me.

Years and babies and life and change later.

I could look at those three numbers and simply say:

I got faster.

But that feels like it misses the entire point.

Because there is so much life between 5:20 and 4:18:47.

Those are three completely different versions of me.

Three different seasons of life.

And every single one of them showed up at a starting line and said:

Let’s see what we can do.

I’m proud of the woman who ran 26.2 miles seven weeks pregnant.

I’m proud of the woman who came back five months postpartum and did it again.

And I’m really freaking proud of the woman who stood at that starting line Saturday.

Because she has lived a whole lot of life since those first two finish lines.

And there is something very different about her now.

Her faith.

There was a time when I thought strength meant pushing harder, controlling more, figuring everything out myself.

Today, strength looks a whole lot more like surrender.

Trusting God.

Staying where my feet are.

Taking the next right step.

And when I think about it, that is exactly what this marathon asked of me.

I had a plan.

Then the plan changed.

I could spend the rest of the race fighting the fact that it wasn’t going the way I wanted it to, or I could accept the mile I was in and keep moving.

I didn’t need to know how I was going to get through all eight miles that were left.

I just needed to take the next step.

And then the next one.

And trust.

That sounds an awful lot like what God has been teaching me outside of running too.

I don’t have to see the whole road.

I don’t have to control the outcome.

I don’t have to understand why every mile looks the way it does.

I just have to trust Him enough to keep moving.

Maybe that’s why the 7:58s and the 13:03s mean even more to me now.

God was there in both.

My worth wasn’t greater when I was flying.

I wasn’t failing when I was walking.

The fast miles counted.

The ugly miles counted.

The miles where I felt powerful counted.

The miles where I had nothing impressive left to give counted.

They all counted.

Just like the seasons of my life.

When I look at:

5:20 → 4:46 → 4:18:47

I don’t just see a runner getting faster.

I see growth.

I see motherhood.

I see resilience.

I see a body that has carried babies and carried me.

I see prayers.

I see surrender.

I see years of becoming.

I see moments I never would have chosen that somehow became part of the road that brought me here.

And I see God woven through all of it.

Maybe that’s the biggest difference between those three women.

Not the pace.

Not the finish time.

Gratitude.

This version of me finally understands:

I get to run.

I get to move this body.

I get to experience hard things.

I get to stand beside other people doing hard things.

I get to hurt.

I get to laugh.

I get to keep going.

I get another day to become the woman God is asking me to be.

Also, because I am apparently incapable of being normal about any of this, I still refused to cut a single corner.

Not one.

If there was a turn, I took the whole freaking turn.

It is a superstition at this point and I stand by it. 😂

So yes.

26.2.

No corners cut.

Literally.

I didn’t run the marathon I pictured.

I ran the marathon I was given.

And maybe that is the bigger lesson God keeps putting in front of me:

I don’t need everything to unfold according to my plan to trust that He is still in it.

And then this morning, two days after the marathon, I put my running shoes back on.

Six miles.

On some VERY sore quads. 😂

There was no pace to chase.

No workout to nail.

No marathon waiting at the end of this training block anymore.

I just ran.

And I found myself looking around at the beauty of so many of the same places that held my training miles.

These roads saw the long runs.

The fast runs.

The tired runs.

The runs where I had to convince myself to keep going.

The runs where I worked things out in my head.

The runs where I prayed.

The runs where I had absolutely no idea what God was doing in my life but kept putting one foot in front of the other anyway.

And this morning?

They got the sore-quad victory lap. 😂

Six miles where I could slow down enough to look around and think:

We did it.

The marathon gets the medal.

The finish line gets the pictures.

The official time gets recorded.

But so much of the transformation happened out here.

On ordinary mornings.

On roads where nobody was cheering.

One mile at a time.

One prayer at a time.

One next right step at a time.

Saturday, I crossed a finish line.

This morning, I got to return to the roads that helped me get there.

And I didn’t miss the significance of that.

I get to do this.

Thank you, God.

For this body.

For these very sore legs. 😂

For every starting line.

For every finish line.

For the people who shared those 26.2 miles with me.

For 5:20.

For 4:46.

For 4:18:47.

For the beautiful miles.

For the brutal ones.

For every version of me who kept showing up.

And for reminding me that I don’t need to see the entire road ahead.

I just need enough faith to take the next step.

There will be another starting line.

And when there is, I’ll show up grateful.

I’ll make a plan.

I’ll probably run at least one mile significantly faster than I have any business running it. 😂

And then I’ll do what I’m learning to do—in running, in faith and in life:

Trust God.

Stay where my feet are.

Take the next right step.

And, obviously…

Never cut the freaking corner. 😂